


shore leave

by wolfchasing



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, blink and you'll miss it Rent reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 11:05:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13996950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfchasing/pseuds/wolfchasing
Summary: tilly gets a glimpse into the life of her boss outside of the pressures of war and starfleet///a little fluffy one shot about how life extends beyond the boundaries of the Discovery





	shore leave

When the ship pulls into orbit around the earth, the entire crew is divided up into batches based on transporter location.

Most of them have the weekend off – some mandatory shore leave while important repairs are done on the Discovery.

From what Sylvia knows, the captain isn’t particularly pleased about this. She’d heard through the grapevine that Lorca had been trying to get the repairs done at a starbase instead of bringing everyone back to Earth, but the admirals had been insistent.

Sylvia’s quite happy about it – they’ve been out in space for a year at this point, and honestly, what’s the point of instantaneous mycelial travel if you can’t take some downtime? It’s not like they can’t all be emergency beamed back to the ship in case they’re needed somewhere.

A decent portion of the crew are dropping into San Francisco for the weekend – mostly cadets like her that need to stop in at the Academy, whether it be to visit friends or beg for mercy from professors about assignments.

Sylvia’s going to San Francisco for several reasons – for one, her family’s from there, and she really should go and see her mother before she gets another snarky call from her. Secondly, she knows that keeping friendly contact with her professors will be good for her career – always a good thing to make connections. Also, she just really wants to see if she can get the number of that cute TA she had in her first year in the Academy. Surely enough time would have passed for him to forget how utterly embarrassing she was?

Sylvia shakes her head to clear the thought away and steps into the transporter room.

It’s crowded as hell – even dividing the crew into batches hasn’t stopped there from being thirty people needing to go down to San Francisco, and so they’ve been divided into even smaller groups. She joins the back of the line – apparently the last one to make it to the room - and slowly waits her turn, idly chatting with one of the medical track cadets that stands in front of her.

“Oh, Tilly, you room with Burnham, right? What's she doing for the weekend?” The cadet asks her, and Sylvia is abruptly reminded why she doesn’t know this fellow cadet very well – he’s an inscrutable gossip.

She shrugs awkwardly – she knows Michael really well by this point, knows her well enough that she’s an intensely private person. “I don’t know. She hasn’t brought it up with me!” She says, which is an utter falsehood – as a convict, Michael is in the custody of the ship, and so was not permitted to leave it for leisure time. Sylvia had offered to stay with Michael, but her roommate had all but pushed her out of the door.

The cadet shrugs. “No worries then.” A slightly awkward silence passes, before the cadet perks up. “I wonder what Stamets is doing! Stick in the mud like him’s probably going down to kiss his shrooms or whatever.” The cadet scoffs. “Doubt he’s even got any people down on Earth for him to visit.”

Sylvia frowns at the cadet’s blatantly disrespectful attitude, but now that it’s been brought up, she can’t help but wonder about what her boss might be doing on a day like this. It’s impossible to imagine him in a casual context, and it’s all too easy to imagine a workaholic like him just continuing his research.

The conversation between her and the cadet dies as they reach the front of the line – they’re the last two in the room bound for San Francisco. They’re stepping up onto the transporter pad, and she hears the familiar _whirr_ of the beams starting up, when she hears a shouted “Wait!” coming from the door.

She looks up and sees Lieutenant Stamets standing in the door, breathing quite heavily, and Sylvia can’t help but boggle at the sight, because her boss is in _shorts._

There’s a backpack slung over his shoulder, and he’s wearing a faded t-shirt, flip flops, and sunglasses. Everything about him screams _day at the beach,_ which, she honestly can _not_ imagine, considering how utterly pale he is.

He’s not looking at her, he’s looking back into the corridor with a patently annoyed expression, and she hears the _slap_ of sandals against the ground.

“Sorry!” Doctor Culber appears around the door-frame, and he’s dressed in attire that is shockingly like Stamets’ – except it’s _way_ more fashionable. Chic sunglasses are placed atop of his head, he’s wearing a dark grey singlet with deep arm holes that reveal more than a little bit of his surprisingly ripped chest, and Sylvia is pretty certain that it’s against regulation to wear shorts that are that short while on a starship. Culber runs a hand over Stamet’s bicep as he walks past him, and the sour expression on the Lieutenant’s face melts into a soft smile.

She hears a soft “wow” to her left, and she can’t help but agree with the gossipy cadet. On their own, each man has their charm – one more than the other – that is tempered entirely by their strict professionalism and the rank that they hold. But now, when they’re in casual clothing and obviously off-the-clock, they make for an absolutely striking couple.

“We got our wires crossed!” Culber says as he walks towards the technician running the transporter console – and even she looks a little struck by being faced with the full force of the good doctor’s smile. “We thought our transport was a little later, so we ran here as fast as we could.”

“ _I_ ran here,” Stamets says somewhat prissily as he steps onto the transporter pad next to her. He gives her a nod and a slight smile, which is way more than she is usually greeted with. “ _Someone_ just forced me on ahead while they sauntered along behind at a relaxing pace.”

She sees Culber shoot another winning grin at the hapless technician before he joins his husband on the pad. “I wonder who that could have been?” He sees her, and she’s faced with the full force of that gorgeous smile. “Tilly! Hello! How are you?”

Oh, Sylvia loves talking to Doctor Culber – he’s so nice to her, even when he doesn’t even have reason to be. “I’m really good! I’m looking forward to touching a planet for the first time in months, you know?”

Culber nods. “Oh, don’t I know it.” His hand that’s not currently holding his husband’s reaches up to pat Stamets’ chest. “We’ve got a day planned at the beach. You?”

She gestures down at her bright red cadet’s uniform. “Hitting up the academy, networking, handing off some research proposals.”

Stamets’ head quirks at the words. “Research proposals? What for? And why haven’t you brought them to me?” He sounds genuinely interested, which is just such an enormous change from what she usually hears from him that she is completely thrown off.

“Uh…” she starts nervously as she hears the technician call _energize._ After the lights fade, Sylvia is greeted by the familiar sight of the campus’ truly massive teleportation centre. They clear the pad quickly to make way for any impending arrivals, with her, Culber, Stamets, and the now-silent cadet walking in a group towards the exit. She slowly explains what she was going to propose to one of her former professors. “It’s not quite your area of expertise, sir, so I didn’t want to bother you.”

Stamets rolls his eyes, and though Culber is trailing slightly behind his husband and can’t see his face, Culber gently slaps his shoulder in admonition. “Tilly, don’t even worry about bringing it to Professor Jenkins,” Stamets says after ineffectively swiping behind him at his partner. “Old coot will probably forget you’ve even submitted it to him, and he’ll probably swipe the idea six months down the track.” Stamets shakes his head. “There’s a reason why they’ve stuck him teaching freshmen at the academy.” They’re slowly coming up on the exit, trying to make their way through the crowd of their crewmates waiting their turn at the door. “You’re right, it’s not my area of expertise, but send it through to me after shore leave is over, and we’ll find someone on the ship you can work on it with.” He gives her a smile, more relaxed than she’s ever seen him. “I think it’s got promise.”

She can’t help beaming at him. “Okay, sir! That means so much to me, you don’t even know!” They push through the crowd and step into the warm sunlight of San Francisco. Sylvia closes her eyes and just turns her face to the sun, basking in the feeling of it on her skin. She gets all the nutrients and vitamins she needs while on the ship, and there are artificial sun lamps to stop them from going mad in the darkness of space, but there’s truly nothing quite like feeling real sunlight from Earth upon her skin.

Next to her, Culber is doing much of the same thing, and she can see tension she hadn’t noticed bleed from his body. In contrast, Stamets has pulled a wide-brimmed hat from his bag and slapped it on his head. He sees her looking, and he shrugs somewhat grumpily. “The sun isn’t exactly kind to my skin.”

She nods in sympathy – she really can’t afford to be standing out unprotected for too long either, or she’ll burn to an absolute crisp.

She’s about to say her goodbyes to the couple when she hears someone absolutely roar in joy.

“PAUL!”

“Oh god,” she hears Stamets mutter, but there’s a wide smile crossing his face, and Culber mirrors the smile as they turn to face the noise.

She turns to the right to see that the shout has come from an absolutely gorgeous human man with a guitar slung across his back, leading a joyful and flamboyant group of humans towards Stamets and Culber. They’re all dressed in similar, bright beach attire with rainbow accents, and they all stick out enormously from the rest of the formal Starfleet crowd surrounding the centre.

Immediately, the couple are sucked into the group, exchanging hugs, kisses, and laughter with all those who have come to greet them.

Sylvia smiles at the sight. She’s never seen her boss look so relaxed and pleased. His face is usually twisted into a permanent grimace about what they are being made to do in the name of war. Seeing him among friends who are just so gleeful and untouched by the war is stripping all of that stress away.

She catches Stamets’ eye and gives him a small wave as she leaves, which he returns with a nod.

Sylvia smiles and can't help but think that she’s glad that the cadet was proven wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> i refuse to believe that 23rd century gays are boring and do nothing. even the most professional, demure queer ppl i know love to let loose and be extremely flamboyant from time to time. i can't stand the idea that that particular essence of fun in our community dies away or diminishes with time. so paul and hugh definitely love to let loose sometimes with their very queer friends.
> 
> anyway, i should be studying and/or working on katabasis, but lmao im terrible at focusing on one thing at a time.


End file.
